


Perfect Combination

by notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:28:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl/pseuds/notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there’s other things you wouldn’t think would be a good combination, end up turning out to be a perfect combination. In this insistence, those things would be two lonely eight year olds and a game of Pokémon. This is the story of how Stiles Stilinski fell in love with Lydia Martin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Combination

          It was a beautiful spring afternoon. Though in eight year old Stiles Stilinski’s mind, it shouldn’t have been. It should’ve been completely against the rules of the universe for anything to be remotely good now that Claudia Novak Stilinski, his mother, was gone from this world. How dare the sun keep shining when there was nobody to make chocolate chip pancakes with on lazy Sunday mornings or play chess with? His father often burnt the pancakes and he preferred poker to chess—that is, when he was fortunate to be sober or wasn’t consumed with his work. Neither of which being common occurrences of late.

          The world was often as cruel to motherless little boys as it was to fatherless little girls. Though in the case of Lydia Martin, her father had not been taken from her. He had left her life through means of his own choosing in the form of a pre-law student named Hannah. Until six months ago, she had spent her entire life in San Francisco. After the divorce had been finalized, her mother relocated them to her hometown of Beacon Hills. Even at the precocious age of eight, Lydia was well-aware of the snide looks and whispered rumors that followed her mother at supermarkets and parent-teacher conferences. Of course, children were often inclined to follow their parents’ example, which only meant Lydia had no friends and resented her new life even more so.

          Other than their single parent status, Stiles and Lydia only had two other things in common.

          One, they were both in Mrs. Hannigan’s third grade class at Beacon Hills Elementary School. Stiles was really quite unaware of Lydia, despite all the boys thinking she was pretty, vying for her attention due to her perfectly kept strawberry-blonde hair and pristine clothes and the way she said ‘lovely.’ He was often too busy keeping his head down and hoping that the day would end sooner. Lydia was quite aware of Stiles, despite him being so antisocial and many of her admirers telling her to avoid the weirdo. She had gleaned from her mother and classmates that he had lost his mother two weeks before her arrival and had since gone oddly quiet since then.

          Two, they were both the only students left at the pick-up area after four on that beautiful spring afternoon.

          Mrs. Hannigan glanced nervously at Stiles and Lydia, sitting on opposite ends of the bench. There were protocols to against children being left here by themselves, even in a small town like this, but she had a husband and babysitter waiting for her. This was their tenth anniversary and she would’ve liked, for once, to be able to make it to dinner on time.

          Lydia was too busy searching out on the road for her mother’s car to notice her teacher’s anxiety. This was the first time her mother had been late and the irrational thought that even she had abandoned her was starting to gnaw at her insides. Stiles, on the other hand, was a seasoned veteran of the ‘my parent is unreasonably late’ club and found himself repeating the same old spiel.

          “It’s okay, Mrs. Hannigan,” he told her. “My dad will be here any minute now. I’ll keep an eye on Lydia,” she looked back at the boy. He knew her name? “You go enjoy dinner.” The entire class knew about the dinner. She had gotten a large bouquet of white roses and a card that she had gleefully read aloud in class, announcing their dinner plans.

          She gave him a thankful smile and started to walk away, only giving them one more worried look—though Lydia saw more pity in it—before rushing off to her car. Her footsteps were fast and concise, the sharp sound of her heels against the concrete were mocking. For a moment, the eight year old could’ve swore she could hear them whispering “un-loved.” **  
**

          Lydia quickly learned that "keeping an eye on her" meant completely ignoring her and playing video games. Normally she wouldn't have minded but she was a little more unnerved by her mother's tardiness than she'd like to admit.

          “What are you doing?” Lydia inquired, hoping to strike up a conversation. She hated to admit it but she was getting lonely, as eight-year-olds without friends tend to. Her entire life had been uprooted and it was only now starting to sink in that she would not be leaving Beacon Hills anytime soon.

          “Playing Pokémon,” he answered nonchalantly. His big brown eyes were fixated on the moving pixelated images on the screen, his feet swinging back and forth in the tempo of the background music, and he didn’t even seem remotely concerned by the fact that his parent/guardian had abandoned him at the school. It was awfully quiet for an elementary school. The absence of laughter and children was alarming.

          “I’ve never played,” she admitted half-heartedly.

          “Never played!” His entire face came alive, full of expression. Surprise and a little bit of passion. “But it’s the best game ever. Here, scoot.” He indicated for her to come closer so he could show off the game. Hesitantly she walked over to the other side of the bench and sat down next to him.

          His Game Boy advance was incredibly pristine for an eight year old boy’s toy. He showed it off with pride, both hands firmly set on the sides. She noticed his fingernails, gnawed down and specks of dried blood in the corners. The picture showed a young boy on the bottom left corner with an orange bird and a young girl with a fat blue mouse-like creature. She had never watched the series or played any of the games. Her father found cartoons juvenile and she had never felt the need to go seek it out.

          “Why is it your favorite?”

          “Because my mom got me the Game Boy and my friend Scott got me the game. It’s two parts of my favorite people.” Stiles replied unashamedly, face beaming with a kind of joy she had thought him incapable of not thirty minutes ago. He hadn’t even bothered asking why she knew it was his favorite. It was so obvious. “So I’m trying to beat this trainer, do you wanna try?”

          “I don’t wanna mess up your game.”

          “But how do you learn if you don’t try?”

          She was a little taken back. Her mother had never pushed her school work, always saying that so long as Lydia was happy, she would be happy. Her father, on the other hand, was a perfectionist of obsessive proportions. She learned quickly that she was expected to get things right the first time around and anything else was unacceptable. Since learning that, she had often avoided activities she felt out of her reach. “Who told you that?”

          “My mom,”

          Lydia pondered on the thought for a moment and came to the conclusion that she would’ve liked Mrs. Stilinski, were she still alive. “Okay, I’ll try,”

          She grasped the game like she had seen him do, one hand one both sides with her thumb over the buttons. He patiently explained to her what each button does and that his Pokémon, a Torchic, had four attacks and each one did a specific amount of damage and how it affected the Azurill, a water-type Pokémon. From what little she knew of the game and cartoon, these creatures were some kind of colorful versions of normal animals with elemental powers that people used to battle against each other for some strange reason. No one had bothered to explain anymore to her and she didn’t bother seeking out any further explanation.

          She had won, barely. When the sirens had started and the health bar began flashing, she started to freak out, but Stiles just told her to use a potion and she would be fine. It was strange how involved she was becoming with this game and she found that he was a good teacher, if playing video games were a relevant skill to her.

          “Okay, that was kind of . . . fun,” she whispered. It had been a while since she had been excited by something so simple and childish. Stiles’ cheering her one was also a fun sight. It made her a little happy to see something other than the glum look he often wore in class. “Do you mind if I keep playing?”

“Nah, I’ll show you how.” He answered, practically bouncing up and down in his seat.

          All in all, it had a basic principle. Each type/element had a weakness and yielded to the next thing, in a circle. After he had gone through and showed off the rest of his Pokémona, Torchic being his favorite, Lydia noticed that most had at least one attack that wasn’t element specific to avoid a complete loss. There was a logic to it, if you could get passed the random hybrid creatures with super powers and the space-defying Pokeballs, that she enjoyed immensely. Stiles, on the other hand, found himself talking more in the past hour than he had in the past six months. He could see why all the boys liked Lydia. She was pretty and smart and she made you feel like you were important with the way she spoke and laughed. It was just nice having someone who didn’t make you feel like a charity case because he was the kid with the dead mom.

          Eventually they were lost to the adventures of the wilderness and battling Gym leaders and team Magma. Stiles explained in colorful details their plan to take over the world and cultivate magma in their new society. Lydia was quite impressed with some of the ideology and noted them later for when she became a famous mathematician and would be charged with coming up with solutions to end global warming or something. It was the most fun that either one of them had had in a long time and they knew that it wouldn’t fix all the bad in their lives but one moment of good was enough for now.

          An obnoxious honk interrupted their fun. The children looked up from the Game Boy to notice a Hispanic woman sitting in an SUV. She gave Stiles an expectant look and he gave her a confused look. He turned back to Lydia with a half-hearted smile and said, “That’s my friend Scott’s mom, Mrs. McCall.” He waved back at her.

          “Hey, Stiles,” Mrs. McCall called from the car. “Your dad was held up at the station so you’ll be staying with us tonight.” This had not been the first time that Melissa McCall had picked him up due to his father’s work. Though most times she thought it her responsibility to take care of her son’s friend, especially once she heard about his mother passing away.

          He gave a guilty look at Lydia whose mother was still not here. Then a white Cadillac pulled up behind the McCall’s car with a woman who had dark orange in the driver’s seat. She was dressed professionally with her makeup done in a subtle way that said ‘better than you’ and classy all at once. The furrowed eyebrows and bright green eyes told him that this was Lydia’s mother.

          “Sweetie,” she walked out of the car and hugged her daughter. “I am so sorry. My client would not stop asking me all these dumb questions about the house. I kept telling him that I had a daughter sitting on some curb, waiting for me—”

          “It’s okay, Mom,” she whispered, hugging her back. “Let’s just go home.”

          Her mother smiled down at her daughter and walked her back to the car. Lydia glanced back him quickly, giving him a slight wave and what he could’ve sworn was a smile. Once she was properly seated, he waved at her and entered the McCall’s car. Scott gave him a puzzled look but all he could do was smile.

          “Who was that?” Melissa asked.

          “Lydia Martin,” Stiles whispered. His face and hands were pressed against the glass in hopes of getting another glimpse of her. Unfortunately, her mother drove the opposite direction and he would have to wait until Monday to see her. He slowly sat down, facing forward, and Melissa noticed a large grin on the boy’s face.  “I’m gonna marry that girl, Mrs. McCall.”


End file.
